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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694899">Finding Their Way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/firjii/pseuds/firjii'>firjii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bosmer (Elder Scrolls), Cyrodiil (Elder Scrolls), F/M, Gen, Martin Septim Lives, MartinLives!AU, Older Woman/Younger Man, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tense Switching, aroace relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:36:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/firjii/pseuds/firjii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alive but not entirely well some time after the canon events of Oblivion, Martin and the HoK have settled into a quiet retirement in an attempt to heal their various traumas and support each other in ways that few other people could. Written approximately in the style of some in-game documents rather than as one specific scene.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Hero of Kvatch | Champion of Cyrodiil/Martin Septim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Finding Their Way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shadows come back easier than they can be banished, but Martin knows that. He’s seen it from the start.</p><p>She’d come to Kvatch so suddenly, so randomly, so accidentally. Even seasoned soldiers would have had difficulty understanding what had happened there. By all rights, she should have died: a wood elf with more experience in running away than fighting, a sporadic archer at best, a mage who could only be called a mage because she excelled at a single spell. <em>And</em> some would say she was getting on a bit, even by elven standards. But she knew a great deal about potions, so she’d survived, if only because she’d been weighed down with flasks and herb pouches when she’d gone through the gate.</p><p>He’d watched her struggle after that.</p><p>With nothing else to compare such an experience to in her life, she’d veered from shock to disbelief to cockiness and everything in between. Common people had looked on her after that with fear, wondering if she’d sided against them, with or without realizing it. She’d hated their suspicion, but nothing in the rumors was beyond what she’d wondered herself. Soldiers and battlemages and bards had stared on in admiration, curious to know the specifics of the tale. She’d hated their gazes but had only rarely squirmed in discomfort. She’d fully realized that if it had been someone else, she’d be among the adoring throngs.</p><p>She’d often referred to it as a dream. Martin had lost count of how many times he’d seen the disconnect in her: wanting to be prepared, but learning in secret, furtively, often alone, all because she’d also been in denial about anything like it ever happening again. The impossible couldn’t happen twice – could it?</p><p>Martin barely made it out alive in the end – the Hero isn’t the only one who has nightmares.</p><p>But she knows this. She never once denies him his time when his eyes become gloomy and dour because a daydream has turned into a flashback or a nightmare. When he wakes in the night screaming, she simply wraps another blanket around him and holds his hand until he falls asleep again. She does it because it is no more or less than what he would do. She does it because it’s all that <em>can</em> be done sometimes.</p><p>More than occasionally, their nightmares synchronize on the same night. When it happens, they draw arms around each other, if only to remind each other that they’re not alone in the darkness. They’re not in another realm or another plane anymore. They’re in Mundus, on Nirn, in Cyrodiil, in the little cottage that Martin so carefully chose for them.</p><p>On those nights, they seldom fall back asleep easily. Instead they listen for the signs that they’re home: the cattle and goats murmuring amongst themselves the next valley over, the odd bark from a dog, the chickens in the backyard that Martin so painstakingly picked out for them. She’d often remarked that pets were somewhat unusual in Valenwood but that it was the first fact about human culture she’d heartily embraced. He’d thought against getting a dog – they were too much like wolves. Cats and several other small creatures made her nervous. But she was fond of birds. Chickens are just enough to keep her mind busy without being overwhelming, and she enjoys learning all the uses for eggs in Cyrodiilic cookery.</p><p>She won’t go outside any more than she needs to. Cities make her panic. Traveling, no matter how gradual and quiet, has made her faint – more than once. The sight of open fields and hills usually makes her sick.</p><p>But after awhile, she lets Martin leave for short intervals – an hour or two to speak with a farmer, an afternoon to retrieve herbs and mushrooms, a half day in a town or city. She gladly listens to his stories. He makes a point of only telling her interesting or funny or happy things. There’s no need to mention that the Imperial City is still scrambling a bit to keep things together. There’s no need to tell her that harrowing near-misses of other sorts still happen throughout Cyrodiil.</p><p>Instead, he fills her mind with jolly jokes he overheard during lunch. He remarks on the unusual wares he’s starting to see in the shops – at times a sign of reestablished trade with the far corners of the province, at others merely proof of the chaos and banditry that comes with decimated villages and ruined estates.</p><p>He also brings back a few more books every time. She appreciates all of them, from history accounts to recent political commentaries to poetry and novels. She claims to be illiterate, but he’s seen her methodically examining books often enough that he knows she simply prefers it when he narrates them for her.</p><p>She smiles, and for awhile – maybe only a moment sometimes – her shoulders aren’t quite so hunched forward, her hands don’t quite fidget about so much, her face isn’t as sickly. Her eyes dance when he comes to an exciting part in a story. She rarely speaks, but she <em>always</em> listens. In time, she even prompts him to re-read certain volumes.</p><p>And he always smiles to see it.</p><p>They are strangely bound together now: more than comrades, less than lovers – not that he minds – and always, always a careful balance as subtle as one strand of a spiderweb yet as steadfast as the moon cycle. Few people understand it, and even fewer can see that it will be their way of life until they die. Martin knows enough to admit that it is as unavoidable as it is fitting. And why <em>should</em> he want to avoid it? Why would <em>either</em> of them want to avoid it?  </p><p>Gradually, he finds her sneaking moments at twilight for fresh, cool, sometimes rain-tinged night winds. Sometimes she doesn’t entirely cross the threshold of their home – sometimes she only opens a window – but her face feels the moonlight and open air.</p><p>And he always smiles to see it.</p><p>She cares for him as deeply as he cares for her. She’s even shown glimmers of craving him. Such it was from their first days traveling together after Kvatch. Yet she still fears too much. She still crumbles too often. She usually shudders if she is embraced, even if the attention only comes from a mild little tot seeking to admire the hero who has become the focus of so many stories.</p><p>In the ten years they have known each other, they have only shared a kiss thrice. He is content to let her lead, and if she never asks for more beyond that, she will still be perfect in his eyes.</p><p>But in time, she holds his hands when he offers them, the simple reminder of another’s presence enough to scatter the storm clouds in her eyes for awhile.</p><p>And in time, she asks him to brace her when the storm clouds consume her a little too much. Quiet times indeed, entire hours spent staring at the hearth, her face ever a melding of heaviness and exhaustion and desperate fear – but softened at the reminder that he can and happily will share her load.</p><p>And he always smiles to see it.</p>
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